Lucent Witness
A Legendary Bastet Fetish that the King of Cats tasked Kaz with finding in exchange for his forgiveness, and the return of Luna's Face. Later, the quest was completed by Nieve and Karuvar. The fetish has since been used by the Hidden Walk Garou, and returned to Karuvar. See 2012. Description A cylindrical rod of blue-tinted glass, its upper and lower edges are sealed with lines of silver that snake down along the length of the glass in loops and whorls. Motes of lights, not unlike fireflies, dance within, forever shedding a soft, lucent glow. The silver of the artifact does not burn shifters, and is arguably moonsilver, though there is no one alive to remember if this is truly the case or not. Notes * Each of the motes within the rod are a collection of Bastet memories. Each mote acts as a kind of archive; it is not the soul of a Bastet, but an imprint. While this might be considered a kind of immortality, it is something more like a recording, though many fail to make that distinction, given the fetish's interactive nature. *The process of using the fetish is fairly simple: The user expresses a question, or a concern, or some kind of issue which can be researched, discussed, or philosophized over. They then feed the fetish a temporary gnosis, which activates the silver lining of the rod, allowing the glass at the end of the rod to momentarily become permeable. The collection of memories, or mote, which can best help the user will then float out from one end of the rod and momentarily meld with the user's conciousness (effectively giving them a Past Life). How the user's question, riddle, etc. is answered or solved depends entirely upon the personality of that mote, how the user deals with it, and so on. The memories will never ask for payment*, though they have been known to test users by locking them inside various memories until some objective is filled to the mote's satisfaction. This is also the fetish's innate defense against undesireables: The motes, which exist indefinitely (so long as the fetish is whole), will incapacitate the user by locking them in a memory until the fetish is cast away (by someone else) and the mote's connection to the fetish forces it to wink out of the user's mind, and reappear back inside the fetish. *As the legend goes, the fetish was crafted by Bastet under the watching gaze of Selene, and so while it will answer anyone who calls to it, the memories within almost universally act in a way that will be to the benefit of the Bastet race. Otherwise, the fetish does not take sides; it merely answers questions. Also, the fetish is, for all intents and purposes, virtually indestructible. Nothing short of an Incarnae's intervention can damage it, and most would be loathe to do so, given the fetish's potential collection of knowledge. *When it melds with a user, the fetish (through its existing collection of memories) evaluates if that user has some sort of information the fetish lacks. If so, and the user is Bastet, and untainted, the fetish will make an imprint of that user and add its memories to the collection, fusing some of the collected gnosis it has stored into a new mote. To be selected in this way has always been considered to be a great honor amongst the Bastet. History * A renowned Ceilican artifact, it died when they died. Or so was thought. In the Celican way, The Lucent Witness has always been known to follow some greater purpose or calling, and tends to show up where and when it is needed. Some say it follows only the will of Selene herself; others say the fetish has developed a mind of its own, patchworked together from all the memories it contains. All tales agree, however, that one day the Witness is there, and then another day, by some relatively mundane encounter (be it stolen, lost in a war, lost in a natural disaster, sold, what have you), it is not. It is known that the Witness does not merely disappear: It flows through fate as if on a river, always moving and meandering on a course known only, perhaps, to the Celestial Incarnae, herself. But it is always moving. * The Witness follows the Bastet credo of 'watch and know' as the Eyes of Selene, and so has a tendency to find its way to places of great strife, or linchpin moments in time, where fate is about to tip one way or the other. Given this, its reputation is as more of a mysterious watcher, or a neutral, impartial observer, rather than a simple tool to be used. In the past, it was honored, sought after, and cherished (so long as it could be held; even locked away it would eventually find a way out). Then one day, coinciding suspiciously with the 'death' of the Ceilican tribe, the artifact vanished. * In actuality, the cohesion of the Celican tribe was necessary for the cohesian of the fetish, given certain agreements with spirits and the fae. When they failed (or at least, failed enough, as they're not gone completey), so did the magic of the fetish (at least partially). The fetish was not destroyed, so the memories it contained did not simply vanish, but they were no longer constrained, and were free to leave the fetish's bounds... and become lost, in many cases, in the Umbra and elsewhere. Thus, as the Ceilican constantly remake themselves, so must the fetish; the released memories have been given time to experience the world once again, before they must be drawn back. * At the bidding of the King of Cats, Kaz, Nieve, Karuvar, and others hunted down the lost vessel of the fetish, and with the last remaining memory of the Witness (which the King of Cats had saved), were able to summon back all of the extant memories (though some needed to be convinced to return, or saved from malicious spirits). * After being used by the Hidden Walk to learn a number of truths and gifts, the Witness was returned to Karuvar, where it is presumed to have been once again given back to fate, though one can never be so sure when it comes to the Lucent Witness...